Review: Cisco’s Linksys E4200 v.2 has killer range and speed

If you’re struggling with streaming video or music wirelessly in your home, keep in mind that there are several components involved that could be causing your pain. The Internet provider, the router, or the receiving device – a TV, PC, set-top box, computer, etc. – are all points of failure.

There are ancillary factors as well, ranging from interference from other sources of radio signals (cordless phones, garage door openers, microwave ovens) in your home or in those of neighbors; bad wiring or connections inside or outside your home; your home’s physical layout, including walls, furniture and appliances.

All this makes troubleshooting Wi-Fi problems particularly difficult. But one of the best approaches you can take is ensure you’ve got a decent router, and that it’s working properly.

If you’ve got a router that’s three years old or more, I’d suggest replacing it. Since the approval and finalization of the 802.11n Wi-Fi standardin 2009, routers have improved dramatically. Chances are any router you buy now will run rings around the older model you’re using currently.

A case in point is the latest version of the Linksys E4200, Cisco’s high-end consumer router. I’ve been using the first release for a while, and while it’s been a stellar router with excellent speed and range, the company recently launched version 2.0. I was skeptical about whether it would be a significant improvement over the first E4200, but that skepticism has dissolved.

As I’ve written before, I’ve got a unique situation. I live in a tall, narrow townhome with a home office on the third floor. That’s where my cable modem is, and thus where my router needs to be. I need to get a decent Wi-Fi signal all the way down to the first floor, and thus I’m forever searching for a router gives me decent speed and good range throughout the house.

TheE4200 version 1.0 did that quite well. Still, there were times when it would choke when streaming video from to a device on the ground floor. It didn’t happen often, but it did happen.

So far, that has not occurred with the E4200 version 2.0 review unit that Cisco sent me to try. The range and signal quality are both superb. I’ve been able to stream video and music to a notebook, iPad and iPhone without a single hitch.

On the iPhone and iPad, I was getting two Wi-Fi bars in the connection indicator on the ground floor with version 1.0. The new one not only gives me three bars, but I get that signal quality on my iPhone even when sitting in my car in the garage. In that case, the signal passes through two floors, through the metal appliances in the kitchen above the garage, and through the steel roof of my car.

In fact, the signal in my car doesn’t drop to two bars until I move to the end of my driveway, about 60 feet from the front of the house.

The E4200 v.2 has three different Wi-Fi connections – 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz. and a 2.4 GHz guest access. This latter allows guests in your home to get Internet access, but they’re not able to see other devices on your network. The guest access has a separate password.

The 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz connections allow you to keep media-oriented devices separate from PCs. The 2.4-GHz signal is often shared with cordless phones and other wireless devices, but there’s less interference on the 5-GHz band. However, 5-GHz band doesn’t have the range that 2.4 GHz does, and if your media device (a TV, set-top box, Xbox, etc.) is far from the router, or if it doesn’t support a 5-GHz connection, you’ll want to use 2.4 GHz.

It achieves its remarkable range with an array of six internal antennas, packed into the same stylish case used for the first version of the E4200. From the outside, you can’t tell them apart.

In theory, the E4200 has a maximum throughput of 450 megabits a second on both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands. This will vary depending on the conditions in your home and the distance of the receiving device from the router. Of course, this is much faster than most home Internet connections, so you’ll likely only really test these limits if you’ve got a network that fully supports such speeds and you’re transferring files or streaming media within it.

The E4200 also comes with an updated version of the Cisco Connect software, which makes setting it up a breeze. While most routers use software to make setup simpler, Cisco’s program – which works with both Windows and Macintosh computers – allows you to do a lot more than that.

It lets you configure Guest Access, parental controls and advanced router settings. It will also create a USB key with your settings that you can use to configure a computer to easily connect to your network.

You can also drop into the Web page-based advanced settings via the software, but there’s a downside to doing so. Some of the advanced settings can break the simpler Cisco Connect, so if you make detailed changes via the Web page, don’t count on using the software after that.

One other problem with the Cisco Connect software: It turns on Guest Access by default. I wound up going into the Web setup pages to turn it off. The software also insists on naming your 5-GHz and 2.4 GHz connections the same thing. I like to keep them separate.

The E4200 v.2 is not an inexpensive router, selling for about $200. You may be able to find it for slightly less online. Yes, that’s a lot of money, but if you’ve got challenges in blanketing your home with a solid Wi-Fi signal, it’s worth it.

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23 Responses

Thanks for the review Dwight. I have been looking at the E3200 for awhile and was all set to buy it this week (it’s 109.99 on Amazon). However, the E4200 v2 looks really good, just maybe not $90 more good. What would I gain from jumping up to the E4200 v2 and will there be a version 2 of the E3200? Thanks

nice review, I’m looking to replace the (way more than 3 years old…) router as well. To forestall the inevitable I added a repeater on the 1st floor which has worked well. My router is upstairs at the west end of the house, downstairs the den is almost directly below it and works well for the laptops and such. But downstairs at the other end of the house the signal was too weak to work for either laptops or iphones. The repeater (Netgear) has fixed that issue and basically gives me 2 access points in most of the house. If I do upgrade the main router, the extender will still work with the new one.

I’ve generally found repeaters to be finicky. The ones I’ve tried don’t stay connected – particularly if the main router has a weak signal – and notebooks and smartphones have trouble deciding which to connect to.

That said, it’s been a while since I tried them. But I have generally found that, with 802.11n, in my home I don’t need one.

The netgear repeater has been flawless for over a year now. It automatically reconnects after power outages, even if I reboot the modem, it is online immediately with no bother on my part. The bonus of it being a one- piece wallwart means it can be located anywhere, ours uses an otherwise useless outlet behind a couch.

The key words in your question are “can’t complain”. If everything’s fine and you’re happy, you probably don’t need to worry about it, particularly if you don’t stream video between devices or over the Web.

However, know that AT&T is still using older 802.11g Wi-Fi on those 2Wire routers. Your range could be better, and your throughput could be better. If you’re not feeling pain as a result of that, you probably don’t need to spend the money.

Also note that “disabling the Wifi on the 2Wire” is a little more involved than such a simple statement would suggest. Plus, some people have reported that certain routers simply will not play nicely with the 2Wire when it is in pure modem mode. I agree with Dwight, if you’re reasonably satisfied with the 2Wire’s range and throughput, save yourself some money and possibly a lot of hassle and stick with it.

I should note that I also have a U-Verse 2Wire set-up, and I’ve been quite happy with the results. My iPhone and iPad never drop below two bars on the WiFi signal no matter where I am in my 2 story house. I reliably get 10-12 Mbps d/l with the 2Wire.

I have the first version, one story house on about a half an acre. I rarely have a problem, just once in awhile. I’ll have to hit the reset button but rarely this happens. Cisco makes an excellant product.

I am confuse by the 6th paragraph above. Is what you are calling the 3rd floor of your townhouse the basement or the top floor? You say your cable modem and router are in your home office that is on the 3rd floor and that you need to get signal all the way down to the 3rd floor. Sounds like your router is at the top of your townhouse and are talking about getting coverage down to the basement.

I am the opposite, with my home office in the basement of my townhouse and therefore looking for coverage all the way up. I have a Cisco E3200 that I just put in and it seems to provide good coverage for all devices except my Samsung Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus.

It seems that Samsung has poor WiFi radios in their smartphones. If all my other devices (HTC, iPod Touch, Macbook) show full bars at a spot and the Samsung devices show one bar, it makes sense that the problem is with the Samsung devices and not the router, right?

I’m not trying to contradict Dwight here but I did notice many reviews on amazon that were less than glowing. Specifically, they say you can’t create a router configuration admin password that is different from your wifi connection encrypted password. I’m not sure if this is true but if so, it bears mentioning. There are many support nightmares reported as well.

That’s not a contradiction. The Amazon reviews likely are referring to the Cisco Connect software, which insists on the same password for both Wi-Fi and router admin access. But if administer the router through the Web-based interface, you can set up separate passwords.

You’ll note that I mentioned in my review that using the Web admin pages can break the Cisco Connect software. This is one of the ways that happens.

I have had some pretty bad luck with older linksys routers… stock firmware as well as linux-based. Most of them would constantly crash. The G-band routers were the worst!

I decided to invest in a Netgear wndr3700 a couple years ago after having trouble with just about every previous consumer router line.

The Netgear has been the best consumer router I have ever owned. It’s great. I have not even installed any modded firmware! Just regular manufacturer updates. At one point I had *thousands* of torrent seeds… no crashes. Multiple people playing games, using bittorrent, and streaming stuff at the same time… no crashes. Starkly different than all my past experiences.

The minor issues have been 5ghz range and the speed of it’s NAS function. I let these go because the thing is stable. There is a lot to be said for stability.

I would expect a next-gen router today to have the same reliability (a must! Any hiccups better be the ISP’s fault!), but with a decent (useful) NAS function, as well, 5ghz range that makes it worth while switching over.

Nice review on the Cisco Linksys E4200v.2 router. I currently have AT&T Uverse service for internet and tv. My modem , pc and tv boxes are “hard wired” to each other and the end devices (in other words, no WiFi). I need advice as to the best way to add WiFi since my wife is interested in using an ereader. Comments?

Chances are, the U-verse Gateway is also a 2Wire Wi-Fi router. Ask AT&T about it. If not, see if they can supply you with one. That’s the simplest thing to do with U-verse. That said, their routers are 802.11g, and if you have a large house, may not blanket it fully. If that’s the case, you’ll want to get a separate 802.11n router and use it instead. You can “attach” it to the 2Wire, but it can be tricky. Look for help at AT&T’s U-verse support forums.

This endles cycle of jumping on the something new to replace a 2 year old something else bandwagon must have been invented just to boast consumer spending.

On the flipside what happens to all the old somethings? I am betting most of them are not responsibly recycled. Can we really afford to keep this pace of spending up? I just replaced a 6 year old printer with a new wireless ready model. Like the old one the new one is hooked to my computer with a USB cable. Works just fine.

Dwight is right the keyword is “can’t complain”. if you’re happy with your setup then leave it as it is. reasons im upgrading to E4200v2 are: to replace my >3yr old router linksys WRT54GS (which is rock solid for 7 yrs)wireless N much better; need to stream video/audio in my 2 story house (54 mbps is not catching up now); cant find a way to do wired home network for 3 computer stations; more wireless devices added after holiday ipads/itouch/netbook (dual band needed) and lastly i just upgrade to cable internet to 20 mbps from old DSL 5mbps. so i guess 200$ upgrade is justified. thanks Dwight for the review.

Dwight – what comcast cable modem do you use? I need one with high thruput. The motorola surfmodem wireless modem I have is limited to 35 mps, I believe. I want to go to a normal modem and a very good wireless router. But both need good thruput! Thanks.

My father has a two-story house, with a cable gateway–modem and router with wireless combined, located in the upstairs study. The old-style rigid aluminum ducting for the heating/AC makes for poor reception downstairs.

I tried a repeater, but it did not work well.

I was wondering about putting a wireless access point downstairs, and hard-wired to the gateway. Do you have any thoughts on that? Can I use a separate SSID for the WAP (to avoid the confusion I get from repeaters)? Any recommendations for which WAPs work best?